I chose to research the phrase “Let’s Roll”.  I chose this phrase as it is the title of a Neil Young song which references the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

According to Wikipedia, the phrase gained widespread usage after its use by Tod Beamer, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93, one of the aircraft hijacked during the September 11th attacks (Wikipedia). Beamer, who was one of the passengers on-board the aircraft who decided to revolt, made a phone call during his final moments. The last words that were heard from him were “Lets Roll”, which were in reference to the passengers attempt to regain control of the hijacked plane. The article then goes on to state that the phrase gained its current usage (to initiate something) through movies and TV shows such as Adam-12, Dragnet, and even Toy Story (Wikipedia).

A google Ngram search of “Let’s Roll” (both upper and lower case) shows the first usage of the phrase between 1860 and 1880. During this time period, the phrase was used primarily to describe the physical action of rolling, and not in its current context. Ngram shows that beginning around 1900 the phrase is used more, however, upon review of text exurbs, it appears to be used almost exclusively to refer to the physical action of rolling. The Ngram search peaks around the year 2000 where mentions of Tod Beamer’s use of the phrase become common. It is at this time that the phrase becomes politicized, being mentioned in many politically based words on terrorism, american patriotism, and national security.

Based off of this, the phrase “Lets Roll” can be summarized as beginning initially used simply to refer to the action of rolling, followed by the current usage to denote the beginning of some activity, and then gaining political and cultural significance after its usage by Tod Beamer.

(WORKS CITED)

“Lets roll”. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 1, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/let%27s_roll

NGRAM Search:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=let%27s+roll%2C+Let%27s+Roll+&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Clet%20%27s%20roll%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CLet%20%27s%20Roll%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Clet%20’s%20roll%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CLet%20’s%20Roll%3B%2Cc1